


Road to Sasuke

by chidorinnn



Category: Naruto
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2015-09-04
Packaged: 2018-04-19 01:36:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4727888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chidorinnn/pseuds/chidorinnn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Road to Ninja: Sasuke Uchiha was a boy who enjoyed watching the people around him smile, and everything he did was to achieve that end. It meant nothing that he was crumbling inside, barely able to keep smiling himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Road to Sasuke

**Author's Note:**

> I gave RtN!Sasuke pretty much the same backstory he got in canon, except since Akatsuki is supposed to be a noble mercenary organization in that world, Itachi never leaves the village and Sasuke never goes on a mad crusade to kill him. However, this comes with its own set of problems, because Sasuke is still Itachi’s everything here, and Sasuke is very aware of that fact. 
> 
> Also, I reject the ridiculous Sakura/Menma/Hinata love triangle we got in the latest episodes.

One day, when he was seven years old, everything Sasuke thought he knew about his life came crashing down.

It happened on a night much like any other. Sasuke had stayed late at the Academy for shuriken practice, and it was almost dark by the time he returned to the clan compound. It was suspiciously quiet when he came home – too quiet. He made it to his house at the center of the compound, but before he could open the front door, Itachi bolted outside, his face pale and his eyes red and black with something that didn’t look like a normal Sharingan.

“Nii-san…?”

Itachi threw his arms around Sasuke and pulled him close, hugging him so tightly that Sasuke thought he was going to suffocate. It was then that it occurred to him that something might be horribly, horribly wrong.

That first night, they stayed with a silver-haired boy that Itachi called “Kakashi-senpai.” Sasuke lay awake in a futon that wasn’t his, as his brother and Kakashi whispered things like “massacre” and “assassination” when they thought Sasuke wasn’t listening. The next morning, when he woke up to his brother sitting by his side with puffy, red-rimmed eyes, Sasuke refused to shed a single tear, even as Itachi explained that there had been a rogue ninja, someone with a grudge against the Uchiha who’d made it a point to kill everyone in the clan compound.

And when Itachi was finished talking, Sasuke smiled. “We’ll be okay, nii-san,” he said, because there was no reason to upset him further by crying or screaming.

They stayed with Kakashi for three days, until the Third Hokage found them an apartment much smaller than their old house at the clan compound, but free from blood and ghosts. Itachi refused to sleep the first few nights at their new apartment – there was no telling when the monster who’d slaughtered their clan would find the two sole survivors and finish the job. He’d be awake when Sasuke could no longer keep his eyes open and stay awake with him, and he’d be awake when Sasuke woke up the next morning. 

“We’ll be okay, nii-san,” Sasuke said as he always did.

* * *

It was easy to smile, easier than crying. Smiling forced Sasuke to think of things that made him happy so that the smile would at least look real, even if it didn’t feel real at first, even when it was hard to find something to be happy about.

And when Sasuke smiled, then Itachi smiled too. Itachi very rarely smiled, these days. 

It became a mission of sorts – an S-ranked mission. His brother had to keep smiling, no matter what, and Sasuke had to smile for Itachi to do the same.

But Itachi never went on missions anymore. Itachi never even left the apartment, because there was no telling when that madman who’d slaughtered their clan would return to finish the job. 

“We’ll be okay, nii-san,” Sasuke would tell him, as he always did.

It became an obsession. The desire to make Itachi smile morphed into a desire to make everyone in the world smile all the time, no matter what. Girls would smile when you complimented them, laugh when you flirted with them. Boys would smile when you joked with them, played with them. Adults would smile when you were nice to them, when they thought you were cute, when you impressed them.

Because when everyone smiled, didn’t that mean that there was no reason for anyone to be sad?

* * *

There were, however, two people who refused to smile for him, no matter how hard Sasuke tried to make them.

“You’re an idiot,” Menma would say in that smug tone of his.

“You’re going to fall one day, Sasuke-kun,” Sakura would say as she pulled her father’s cherry blossom pendant out from under her shirt and frowned contemplatively at it. “You can’t pretend forever.”

* * *

A week after his team’s first C-rank mission, Sasuke came home after training to find an unfamiliar man and woman sitting with his brother at the table, both of them wearing long black cloaks covered in red clouds. 

“Sorry!” Sasuke yelped as he toed off his shoes and kicked them into some semblance of order to the side of the genkan. Itachi hadn’t mentioned that morning that they’d be having company.

“Ah, you must be the one Kisame mentioned,” said the man with a gentle smile. He had long, silky red hair that reminded Sasuke of Menma’s mother’s.

“Kisame…?” Sasuke echoed. 

“Our operative in the Land of Water,” the woman explained. She wore her blue hair in a bun, with a paper flower for decoration. “Your admirable strength in Wave has not escaped our attention.”

“Wave…” Sasuke mumbled with a sheepish smile. “Strength” was hardly the word he’d use to describe what had happened on that mission. 

(Dozens of senbon flying toward Menma, who was usually more prepared than this. Sasuke moving without thinking, even though he was more accustomed to people saving him than the other way around. Sakura, normally so calm and composed, nearly in tears because she believed that he could really be dead.)

“So…” Sasuke said slowly, uncertainly. “You wanted to speak to me?”

“To your brother, actually,” the man replied. “We’ve heard great things about you, Itachi-san.”

“I’m retired, Nagato-san,” Itachi said flatly, his elbows resting on the table and his hands clasped together before him. It was a strange thing to hear from someone who wasn’t even twenty years old.

“Working for Akatsuki won’t be like active duty,” the man Nagato explained. “You’ll be assigned missions, yes, but nothing that will require you to spend a large amount of time away from home. We will meet, but at a location convenient for each team member. We  _are_  an international organization, after all.”

“You don’t have to decide right now,” the woman said gently. “Give it some thought, and then tell us your answer when you’re ready.”

They left not long afterward, but Itachi didn’t move from his spot at the table for a long time. “I think you should do it,” Sasuke told him. “It’ll be good for you.”

Three days later, Itachi left the apartment – a momentous occasion in and of itself – and handed a scroll to a red-haired man wearing a black cloak with red clouds at the village gates.

* * *

Itachi was very rarely home after that. It was a good thing, Sasuke told himself, since it meant that his brother would have something to do other than sitting at home and brooding. Nowadays, Itachi actually smiled, and not only in reaction to Sasuke.

(And a smiling Itachi meant a happy Itachi.)

But even with a happier Itachi, Sasuke couldn’t ignore the cold feeling that clenched at his gut whenever he came home to an empty apartment. Every night, before opening the front door, he thought back to that first night, all those years ago when it was suddenly just the two of them for reasons that no one thought it was a good idea to tell Sasuke. 

And though it didn’t come as much of a surprise, Sasuke found that he was very, very afraid of being alone.

He activated his Sharingan first, scanning the apartment for any chakra signatures that didn’t belong to Itachi, the Third Hokage, or Kakashi. But there was no one – just him.

So Sasuke smiled, because it was all that he knew to do, and made his way to the kitchen. The smell of cooking oils and steamed vegetables and fried meats made it easy to forget that Itachi, who was always supposed to be there, had not come home yet.

(Of course, there was no reason to worry – Itachi came back less than an hour later, stammering out apologies and promises that he’d come home sooner next time.)

The next time it happened, Itachi told him beforehand that he would be late. Coincidentally, that same night after a day of missions and training, Kakashi called for a team dinner. The next time, Menma insisted that Sasuke come eat dinner with him and his parents. The time after that, Sakura invited him to her apartment (implications be damned) and they cooked dinner together.

And Sasuke smiled the entire time, because it was all that he knew to do.

* * *

It happened randomly, without warning, on a night when Itachi had said beforehand that he would be late. Sasuke waited that night, long after the time Itachi usually arrived home. And all the while, he smiled because it was all he knew to do.

But the man who walked through the front door that night was Kakashi, not Itachi. “Sasuke,” he said, “please don’t be alarmed, but you have to come with me to the hospital.”

He’d been injured on a mission, Kakashi said, but Sasuke strongly suspected that his sensei was downplaying the truth. Arriving at the hospital, seeing his brother lying unconscious on a hospital bed, his body swathed in bandages. Sasuke’s breath caught in his throat, and he couldn’t move.

“The doctor said that his condition is stable,” he barely registered Menma saying from his left. “He should be fine with bed rest.”

“It wasn’t his first mission, so he had to know what he was getting himself into,” Kakashi said from behind him. “Kisame-san said that they were outnumbered.”

Sakura slipped her hand into his from his right. “You can’t pretend forever, Sasuke-kun.”

But Sasuke smiled, because it was all that he knew to do.

“I’m fine,” he assured them. “You don’t have to worry about me.” His eyes began to burn, but he willed what was surely the inevitable tears not to fall. For now, Sakura’s hand in is, Kakashi’s hand on one of his shoulders, and Menma’s hand on his other shoulder anchored him there, reminded him where exactly he was and what it would mean to lose control.

Even later, long after Itachi woke, long after Sasuke realized that he’d awakened his own Sharingan – not at the mission from Wave like he’d expected – Sasuke continued to smile because it was all that he knew to do.

* * *

Sasuke Uchiha was a boy who enjoyed watching the people around him smile, and everything he did was to achieve that end. It meant nothing that he was crumbling inside, barely able to keep smiling himself. 


End file.
